


Just Like Countless Others

by moonmoth (greyvvardenfell)



Series: Moth & Raven [2]
Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Mild Language, Pre-Canon, Red Plague (The Arcana)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:42:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23587834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greyvvardenfell/pseuds/moonmoth
Summary: Reyja makes a horrifying discovery.
Relationships: Apprentice/Julian Devorak, Julian Devorak/Original Character(s)
Series: Moth & Raven [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1696501
Comments: 5
Kudos: 15





	Just Like Countless Others

Every muscle complains when I roll over. I may as well not have slept at all, from the bone-deep weariness that sucks at my spine and whispers tantalizing promises from the folds of my sheets. But I have work to do, patients to see, grief to relieve…

Why won’t my eyes open?

Ugh, gross! I’m no stranger to some morning eye gunk, but it’s never this bad! Cementing my eyelids together like— like…

No. No, it can’t be…

No.

My hands— they, there’s—

The tips of my fingers are red as blood, each spidery vein outlined under my skin. The scarlet stains radiate out from under my fingernails, across my palms and down my wrists. It’s the same on the backs of my hands. I feel myself go numb, awareness fading to a pinprick in a sea of silence. As if in a trance, I stumble into the bathroom and fill the basin beneath my grungy mirror. But it doesn’t wash away no matter how hard I scrub.

Slowly, I brace myself on the basin’s edge and lift my head. A strange reflection stares back at me, tousled from sleep, her blue-gray irises blazing in fields of red. I’ve seen that color so much. Somehow I never pictured it on me, though. I raise one hand to the mirror’s surface and skate my fingers over the image of my face. The red, red eyes follow. I take a step away from it and they follow me again. I can’t escape.

Cold dread, ice cold, so cold it burns like the ache in my joints and the fever I know will soon overwhelm me, blooms in my stomach. It feels far away, but it’s the only thing strong enough to break through my haze. Julian. Of course he sees infected patients every day, but what if I put him in even more danger? God knows we haven’t done anything that could’ve led to, uh, advanced exposure, but the city needs him. Maybe the world. No, I can’t think about that. I can’t think about him right now. 

It’s just like me to sleep through the first stage of the fucking plague. Despite myself, I laugh harshly. If I don’t, I’ll cry. I’ll cry and never stop until they cart me away to the Lazaret. I’ve been lucky, to escape it up to now. But I have to do something, tell someone, make use of the skills I was hired to hone. Who knows how long this will take? How long I… how long I have left. 

The thought hits me like a charging warhorse. I am going to die. I am going to die just like countless others, screaming, tormented, wasted away. I am going to die without ever having found a cure. I am going to die without seeing an aurora over the ice fields on the southern seas like I always dreamt of. I am going to die without telling Julian Devorak I love him. 

There’s nothing I can do, anymore. I will not risk infecting anyone else. And who, really, should I tell? I haven’t spoken to my parents in years; they probably think I’m dead already. Dollezhan is dead. Anyone I thought was a friend has either left the city or turned their back on me since finding out I work with plague victims. Or died too. Julian will be too busy to check on me, I’m sure, as will everyone else at the clinic. I’ll be noteworthy only for my absence, and only in passing.

It’s better this way.

It’ll be easier not to say goodbye.

I hope he’ll understand. Hell, I hope he forgets about me entirely and goes on to be happy with someone else. He deserves that much, at the very least.

I think I’ll go back to bed. In my dreams, however feverish they may become, maybe I can find some version of him that will forgive me.


End file.
